Students go purple for epilepsy awareness

MORE than 150 staff and students from John Paul II Catholic School raised support for epilepsy in their school community when they dressed head to toe in purple for International Epilepsy Awareness Month.

Held during March, International Epilepsy Awareness Month is a time when people are actively encouraged to talk about epilepsy and remind those suffering from the condition that they are not alone.

Event organiser Danielle Schramm said her husband and three daughters, who attended the school, all suffered from epilepsy or stress seizures.

As a result, Ms Schramm said she personally understood the impact the condition had on a person’s quality of life.

“Many of my daughter Taleah’s grade two classmates were very scared when she had her first seizure in class, which lasted about seven to eight minutes,” she said.

“She continued having seizures at school and my other two daughters followed less than two-weeks later.

“After all the help we received from Epilepsy Tasmania, we thought it was only fair to help raise awareness and funds for the organisation by hosting a fundraising event so that similar families could receive the help they need.”

John Paul II Catholic School principal Fran Bearman said supporting epilepsy was a “great cause” and helped to save the lives of those affected by the condition.

“We have a number of families at our school who are affected by epilepsy and we wanted to offer them our care and support by hosting this fundraising event,” she said.

“In addition to wearing purple, we also sold some great purple merchandise such as plush toys, which were a particular favourite for the children.

“The day was a lot of fun and all the staff and students got into the spirit of dressing up to raise much-needed funds for Epilepsy Tasmania and spread awareness of epilepsy at our school.”